Rumor: Nintendo Recalling Basic Wii U Systems from Store Shelves

Nintendo may be asking retailers to prepare for a Wii U basic edition recall in the very near future. But why?

According to a source of Kotaku, an email has been sent to employees of GameStop stores asking for them to return all unopened basic Wii U systems to the distribution center. While a reason for the recall wasn’t given, the date for the return is listed as Tuesday, June 18– just under two weeks from now.

If this recall turns out to be fact, then it could mean one of several things. Nintendo may be preparing to discontinue the basic set of its latest system, and instead simply offer the now-deluxe bundle at a lower price point. Such a plan could possibly be unveiled during Nintendo’s E3 Direct planned for next Tuesday at 10:00 AM EST, and would fall in line with reports that the deluxe set will be offered in Japan in white on July 25; it’s currently only offered in black in all regions, while white is relegated to the basic edition packages. Alternatively, it may simply be that GameStop is reducing Wii U space in stores as a means of making up for the system’s lower-than-expected sales since its launch last November.

The Wii U was released in North America on November 18 last year. The system was, and currently still is, offered in two different editions: a white basic edition priced at $299.99 that includes the system, a Wii U GamePad, and 8 gigabytes of internal storage; and a black deluxe edition sold for $349.99 that includes the Wii U system, a GamePad, 32 gigabytes of storage, a physical copy of Nintendo Land, and a discount for purchases made on the Nintendo eShop. An additional bundle containing the deluxe contents, a Wii U Pro Controller, and a copy of launch title ZombiU was made available for $389.99 on February 17.

4P Games will continue to bring you Wii U news as it is made available.

I feel like 8GB is way too little space nowadays and I’ve often sort of wondered why they even had the 8GB model. Didn’t the initial update/installation of the console’s OS take up most of the 8 anyway? I think it makes plenty of sense that they’re either going with just the 32GB model or they’ll price drop that one and slap an even bigger hard drive in a new iteration.

There have been rumors floating around that they’re introducing a white 32GB model, so it could be that they’re recalling the 8GB to upgrade them to 32 and send them back out as Premiums. It’d be nice to get a price drop to $299 overall as well.

32GB doesn’t seem like a lot either. Unless Wii U titles don’t have a Nintendo Shop digital counterpart when they release? I figured they were going that way based on how they’ve been running the 3DS and if they are, they’re gonna need bigger storage space on their consoles pretty soon.

A lot of Wii U games are available on the eShop, so yeah, 32GB fills up fast. They allow you to use any form of USB storage though, so you can hook up an external hard drive and expand your storage space significantly.

Nintendo of America has released a statement: “There is a current misperception about Wii U hardware. To clarify: Nintendo is working with its retail partners to simply rebalance the stock of the White 8GB and the Black 32GB Wii U models in the market. Consumers looking for either model will continue to find them available.”

A lot of Wii U games are available on the eShop, so yeah, 32GB fills up fast. They allow you to use any form of USB storage though, so you can hook up an external hard drive and expand your storage space significantly.

Ohh, I didn’t realize that was the case. That’s not too bad, although the idea of running a game off a USB connected device makes me kind of sick. God that would be slow.